The ATF’s Secret Slush Funds
The Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is supposed to track down and arrest people who illegally sell alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. But the agency got in deep trouble in 2017 when outside investigators discovered a slush fund at one of its offices in Vermont. Even more bizarre, it turned out that the money in the fund was generated using the illegal sales of cigarettes—the very thing that the ATF was supposed to be policing. ATF agents apparently used this fund to finance secret missions and also to buy themselves a wide variety of nice things, including at least one trip to Las Vegas and NASCAR tickets, among other things. They got into trouble when people found out what had been going on.
